Requisition required a TS Clearance, however the recruiter had my resume on file with instructions to call me if they were ever willing to provide one or advance an existing one. She called out of the blue, unsolicited by myself, for an opening at their DC site. Very awesome job by recruiting, as that resume was a year old and I hadn't applied for anything. I also pointed out that I live less than a mile from their other contracts with the same positions in Springfield VA, and had no issues working at either site, or bouncing between the two, etc. The recruiter stated that "those positions are always open, but they're placeholders, not actual roles". I have no idea what that means.
Went directly for an on-site interview; the recruiter only did a meet and greet on the phone to set that up as she likely wasn't technical enough to speak about the position in detail.
Took a day off work and went on-site via Metro, was processed into the facility through security, and met in the lobby by the hiring manager. He escorted me up to his office for an interview and told me "he interviews differently, it's more of a conversational style."
He reviewed my resume, had a few standard questions about my previous and current employment, and spoke a bit about the opening and the duties. He answered a few of my questions, but only somewhat high level, which makes sense since he's only the manager, not the engineer, or so I thought at the time. We also discussed commute, which was about an hour on Metro; not ideal, but doable, and I also mentioned that I live extremely close to their Springfield contract, if that mattered at all.
He then discussed at length his own knowledge of the technology, his experience with different applications, monitoring systems, and the like at a very high level. He did ask me a particular question that stands out, which I did not answer with what he was seeking, mentioned below. He also spent a large majority of the interview (definitely over 15 minutes) on a personal cell phone call with his wife. He also answered and wrote more than one either email or text message, I'm unsure which, interrupting himself mid-sentence to do so frequently. There seemed to be some issue with picking children up.
I did not meet any other employees on the contract, I did not see any work areas (including the unclassified ones), I did not get any details on major work, projects, or duties other than very basic general information. The entire interview was very laissez faire for a technical position, which only makes sense if there's other rounds of interviews coming. But I was told directly that there was only one interview.
Afterwards, he escorted me out again, was very happy, seemed to like me, and kept repeating "let's keep in touch, I really want to keep in touch about this job but also some other things, definitely good things. I'm excited about this."
After the interview, I exchanged two emails recruiter, once to get the hiring manager's email address, and the another just to follow up. I sent a follow up email to the hiring manager the next day, but never heard back from him. The only email from the recruiter had said "I got very good feedback today on the interview with you. He has one more interview on Monday, and should be making some decisions next week".
After that, I stopped hearing from her. I probably contacted her once a week for a month, both with emails and voicemail. Intelligent Decisions completely and utterly dropped off the radar. Since I was already employed, my situation wasn't critical, but it was annoying to have to burn a vacation day and do an interview with no feedback. A few months later I decided to transition jobs anyways, and found a much higher paying role much closer to home. It would have been nice, however, for them to simply say they were or were not interested, instead of putting me off and then dropping all communications, or at the very least explain what happened. Maybe it was circumstantial, maybe the government pulled the req, maybe the manager was indisposed.
I have absolutely no idea what happened with this job. Their website still constantly has the same roles posted for both DC and for Springfield, and they seem to re-open the reqs every 30+ days to keep them fresh. I doubt that I'd ever apply or interview for a role there again, based on the interview experience and some of the other reviews I've seen from internal staff. It seems a bit too disorganized to say the least. I've had recruiters disappear after a phone call, or job requisitions close before the interview process can start, but I've never seen a company call, out of the blue, for a job you didn't even apply for, bring you on-site for an interview, speak optimistically and positively about that interview, and then completely vanish after 2 weeks of keeping in touch.
